Christopher Morris has covered major conflicts around the world since the mid-1980s—from the First Gulf War and Panama invasion to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and spent eight years chronicling George W. Bush’s White House. When he recently arrived in Washington, D.C., and started photographing the violent Capitol riot on January 6, he was in a state of shock. “I have witnessed this in other countries” he says. “It has a sinister nature.” Morris says he was harassed multiple times by the pro-Trump mob while documenting the action on the east side of the Capitol building. The thing that kept him going was focusing on the historical value of the images. He has since been photographing the overwhelming security preparations for Joe Biden’s Wednesday inauguration with the intensity and eye of a seasoned war photographer. The images taken at night in the past week present an intimidating view of the Capitol and carry an eerie sense of foreboding. Soldiers covered with balaclavas and assault rifles at every checkpoint, government buildings encircled with barbed wire, ammunition being loaded off of trucks, blockades and fences at most intersections, and not a civilian in sight. Morris fears the image being conveyed is that “the Biden administration is needing to be protected from the people,” he says. With reports of possible insider threats and additional FBI vetting of the roughly 25,000 National Guard troops in Washington, the scenes are tense and dark—and will stand the test of time.